My third grandchild was due today but didn’t show up on time, first babies are generally about 9days late. Lately our friends expecting have had Gabriella and Sebastian, one induced and one by caesar as a breech baby, the next due is already ten days late with an induction booked for Thursday…. Perhaps my daughter’s child will be the entirely Natural birth she has planned for.

It seems she wants everything natural. All the first size clothes are natural and neutral and at first i was only allowed to knit white, cream or oatmeal….I did get bored with that ! And soon introduced fairy rainbow colours which make fair-isle patterns of their own – we have ready two tiny card’s one neutrel and one fair-isle , two tiny hats and bootees to match ! Now we’re onto the really bright zazzy orange and vibrant pink rainbow with blue and green so fit for unisex ! As we’re the only member of the NCT group without knowledge of the sex of our baby to be.

We have worked hard at building the crib and the wardrobe – both flat pack ! And the bean bag chair – stuff it yourself with polystyrene beads (not to be recommended nor swallowed by the dog…) ! Don’t want to have to do that again … We’ve ordered the pram as we’re so so fussy about colour and design when it’s not ours ! And nearly all of them in every shop were over £500 each … We seem to have negotiated a deal with carry cot and car seat included thankfully.

Even the dog is fed up with the state of the Dining room and climbed into the Birth pool and got stuck there one early morning and shrieked to be helped out again !

We can’t wait to greet this new addition to our family and hope it won’t be too much longer, the freezer is full and the fridge had a clean today; we’ve finished sewing buttons onto the knitting and nearly run out of baby yarns. We’ve washed all the nappies and folded the cloths, time to go to sleep and dream… I dreamt i took my 21yr old to school again last night, she was about 6.

Earlier today, I just read about the tragic loss of a small child in a front facing car seat who suffered multiple injuries and died . It’s So Very very sad that a few moments more spent adjusting the seat belts and straps and putting the boy in his car safety seat rear-facing, rather than forwards had cost him his precious little life.

Our hearts go out to those who have faced death with their babies and who have had very difficult nigh impossible decisions to make after such tragic accidents… And our prayers go with them too.

My own third grandchild will be born within the next 2 or 3 weeks hopefully and we wait with excited but low-key breath. Olivia, our 2nd daughter, 25, expects a baby very soon. Everything goes absolutely normally, so she’s opted to have a Home Birth should all proceed in a timely manner in the next few weeks.

Her peer group at NCT National Childbirth Trust class find her spirit brave, but she just sees it as the normal choice to make. SO far two women there have NOT been so lucky. One was Induced a week early and delivered of a beautiful baby because she was told the placenta couldn’t be feeding her as she was rather small for her dates, another went in for a voluntary Caesar on Wednesday because the child was a Breech presentation.

A third mother-to-be from our NCT class expects to ward off at another 9 or ten days late, an Induction, but has already had to agree to a Sweep next week….

We await an entirely « Normal » birth to happen, and this is and only 3 out of the five girls in class together this season.

Personally i find this rather worrying and the two young women we met when their babes were 4 -6 weeks old to hear their Birth stories, similarly were started off by the Health services and delivered in Theatre with Forceps…. No longer are Midwives allowed to perform this procedure, which left my brother, now 65, with permanent marks on his forehead !

I was a Stop-Start babe a bit like Miss O herself. I didn’t want to come into the world immediately and my mother arrived at Hospital in the fifties only to be sent straight home again…. I myself stayed in overnight and was transferred to the main Hospital after a night on Gas & Air with nothing moving down or forward… that was a Monday, by Tuesday evening we had waited long enough and at 9pm, after my husband had left for home after the Visiting hour, at Bed time & Cocoa time, with John McEnroe losing and professing, famously: I do NOT Believe it ! In his fashionable Tennis Hippie headband at Wimbledon and very impatiently bad tempered, my waters went sploosh on someone else’s carpet ! But although some pains followed, i was not opening up as i should have and my baby had indeed to be Induced with a drip up the following day, a Wednesday…Henry VIII’s own Birth day ! Olivia was born after they had given mea full cooked Breakfast and let me take an early Bath. I gave Birth standing on my head as she was painfully a Back to Back baby with her head down !

I also had to be asked if they coud cut her cord in advance of her Birth so she was not only 17 days late she was a little BLUE Baby with the cord all wrapped around her three times over ….

I’m told TODAY she would NOT have her very long cord cut early, maybe it wasn’t essential at the time, but it certainly felt like an Emergency. I felt very lucky she was ALIVE and very grateful to the very caring Welsh Hospital who facilitated a relatively Easy Birth in the end, and a 7lb 10oz baby girl almost healthy and well. She was treated as a Special care baby, never put downat all . And for the next three weeks of her early life she spent with me, in a Midwife led unit in South Wales. Even the cleaning lady would hold her while i ate my soup, or went for a wash – My own little Welsh girl with hair of a reddish glow and mild case of jaundice.

We carried her non-stop till she was about six weeks old, she fed little and often and the family holiday was exhausting but the hottest summer in History so we all felt tired carrying her about all day! The Derbyshire Health Visitor came twice a week for 2 or 3 weeks to check on her cord and give her her bath in a new washing up bowl bought for the purpose !

Unlike her older sister, my third baby girl was born up the road from where we live now and was delivered by me her mother, while the lax midwife insisted she’d not arrive for another hour at least and she was just calling for someone else to sit by me while she went on her Break at 3.15am ! Even the Porter wasn’t on Duty that morning and my husband helped another Nurse, fresh on duty, push my bed and new baby into the lift up to the ward after bathing, weighing and giving her back to me.

That Birth was fine! 1 hour and a half exactly – I sat up, told the wretched woman to get out of my way, she was just a girl really and covered in new fangled for 1993, rather unhygienic looking, multiple piercings all over her face. And as she leant across the high bed and me i nearly fell off , only to catch my little baby who looked up at me blindly smiling – looking like the little Rose that she was, and is !

Apparently my cervix fails to dilate till the moment the child is ready to arrive and as i’d only been told i was 4cm dilated on arrival 20mins before, the midwife had failed to notice the imminent Birth (she was very nearly born in the front of the car on the dual carriageway, the A34 to Oxford !)

Babies are indeed always, a LAW unto themselves. Aren’t they ? Little blighters my Daddy would say and cheeky monkeys too! If he were here to greet a 3rd Great Grandchild into the 21st Century along with my Mum, Great Grannie Barbar, in her 89th year !

Good Luck to all of you then, those expectant Mum’s out there, including Zeta and Mel from our group and our heart felt Congratulations to those already safely arrived and just a REMINDER – Please please, make sure you ALWAYS strap in properly your precious little bundles safely and the Rear-facing way round is BEST for all !

And Good Luck to her Royal Highness, Princess Kate as we call her affectionately.I wonder if it will be the much awaited little Princess & Royal Berkshire Birth this time ?